St. Landry democrat., 1887-08-13

as ever; or that st couM even be grated
on another body. Some OF the achieFe-
ments of our own surgeons certainly suS-
gest the romantic possibility that II theY
had time enough to develop their sklll
the art of grating might be made TO sue
coed as well with men as with trees
AS air is an clement which covers land
and sea alike and reaches above the Mill
tops as well, we may be sure that the at
mosphere of Mars is the common high
way for its inhabitants, provided only
that they have solved the problem OF
navigating it. In that case it must serve
them for many of the purposes OF trans
pOrtatiOn, their commerce beng carried
on over their heads and their battle fields
being in the air. Electricity would be as.
awful in war as it would be useful IN
peace if once men could contrive to ren-
der it subservient to their purposes, ana
penetrate the secrets of its power W hat
more exciting scene could the magma
ton conceive than the spectacle OF TWO
aerial squadrOns meeting in the atmos-
phere of Mars like two thunder-clouds
and launching electric bolts as terrible
and resistless as lightning in their eforts
at mutual destruction, While beneath
them lay some fair city, with towering
steeples and golden domes, as the prize
awaiting the victor?
What machines might not an ingenious
people as old as the Martians have IN
vented! We have many marvellous ma
chimes that seem almost to possess an
intelligence Of their own, so certainly
and accurately do they perform their
work but nobody believes that the age
Of invention has more than just begun
upon the earth. How can we set limits,
then, to the progress the Martians may
have made in this respect if we once
grant that they possess the accumulated
experience of ages which for us lies yet
far in the future? One might almost
expect, if he could visit Mars, to find its
inhabitants served by. very Franken-
stems of ingenious mechanism.
The secrets of the Marian poles can
hardly have remained unpenetrated II Its
inhabitants can navigate the air, and as
there are very great variations IN the
temperature of the seasons of Mars, they
may, by the same means, be able, like the
birds, to migrate to more congenlal
climes when the weather grows dlsa-
grceable. In short, there is hardly any
possible attainment of human invention
and progress which we may not salely
ascribe to the inhabitants Of the planet
Mars if they really are, as has been
assumed, an older race than the descend
ants of Adam, and possessed OF equal m
genuity.
1t must not be thought that all such
speculations are quite as idle as they
seem, for as we saw at the beginning OF
this article there exist numerous reasons
for regarding Mars as a world, in many
D1D hi h4
We must not, however, disguise the fact
that it possesses also many points OF
wide divergence from the earth. 1t gets,
upon the whole less than half as much
light and heat from the sun as the earth
gets, and it's atmosphere is probably less
dense than ours, while the seasons are
very inequitable. Yet all these things
would not render it uninhabitable, for
there is almost no limit to the adaptive
capabilities of nature, and so we may,
with a high degree of probability, draw
from the presence Of air and water upon
Mars the inference that life also exists
there. Every step beyond that mere in
ference is, of course, purely fancltul,
but so long as we do not lose
sight of that fact, we can give
rein to the imagination, and console
ourselves with the thought that our fam
cies about the Martians are at least as
reasonable as those of Swedenborg who,
as if he had had in mind the advantages
that race may derive from ages of de-
velopment, declared that 1.-The spirits of
Mars are amongst the best of all spirits,
who come from the earths of this solar
system, being for the most part celestial
men, not unlike those who were of the
most ancient church on this earth.
The speech of the inhabitants of Mars
was different from that of the inhabit-
ants of our earth, in that it was not
sonorous, but almost tacit, insinuating
itself into the interior~or hearing and
sight by shorter way, and consequently
it was more perfect, fuller of ideas, and
thereby approaching nearer to the speech
of spirits and angels"
That sort of speech would be worth
striving many centuries to obtain, and If
the Martians have got it they must be
congratulated upon its possession more
heartily than upon all their other sup
posed advantages.
GARRETT P. SERVES.
GOLDEN THOUGHTS.